Week 4 — Prenatal Development and Birth

Why this matters

A nursing student who will stand in a birthing room and a future preschool teacher who will hear a family describe an early arrival both need a fair way to read the start of a child's story.

In plain language

Every child's story starts before birth, in the months when the body is built from a single cell. This week you will follow the prenatal periods (the three stages of development before birth) and see how genes (the body's inherited instructions) and the environment work together from the very start. You will meet teratogens (substances or conditions that can harm development before birth) and learn why their timing matters. Then you will follow birth itself and the newborn's first check, the Apgar score (a quick rating of five signs at 1 and 5 minutes after birth). You will finish with two health definitions every caregiver hears: low birth weight (a baby who is small at birth) and preterm birth (a baby who arrives early).

• Already covered: Week 3's two-column observation record.
• This week: the prenatal periods, genes and environment, teratogens, labor, the Apgar score.
• How they connect: record R1 is written the Week 3 way.
• Where we're going next: Week 5, Infancy and Toddlerhood: Physical Development.

Focus

What happens before birth, what can help or harm it, and what does a newborn's first score tell us?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] name the germinal, embryonic, and fetal periods
• [ ] explain why a teratogen's timing matters
• [ ] total an Apgar score and read it as a snapshot
• [ ] tell preterm birth apart from low birth weight

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 4 (~35–45 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes).
3. Do the practice set (15–25 minutes).
4. Do the Child Observation Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
5. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: total record R1's Apgar score at 1 and 5 minutes and say what it does not predict.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com